It’s hard to remember that before LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were brought together in the summer of 2010, another big man, Carlos Boozer, was presumed to be heading to South Beach.

The Miami Heat pursued Boozer, who was then with the Utah Jazz, at the trading deadline that year after talks with the Phoenix Suns for Amare Stoudemire went nowhere. Utah preferred to simply let Boozer go in free agency.

In retrospect, the unsuccessful trade discussions for Boozer (and Stoudemire, for that matter) were strokes of good fortune. The Heat have Bosh instead, and for the second time in the last three postseasons, Bosh is squaring off against Boozer. And Bosh is owning the matchup.

Bosh’s numbers weren’t spectacular Monday in Chicago, where the Heat beat the Bulls 88-65 to take a commanding 3-1 series lead in the East semis. He finished with 14 points and six rebounds. But he started the game 6-for-7, and his shooting helped Miami take a comfortable lead that turned into a blowout in the third quarter.

Just as important, he had four blocked shots and held Boozer to an abominable 3-for-14 from the floor, part of a hard-to-watch 25.7 percent shooting performance by Chicago.

“He’s giving us what we need,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters. “That’s what this series is about. This series is not about coming in and trying to get your averages. You can throw out your averages because we’ll run particular actions, and you don’t know where the ball will end up. Whoever’s got the best opportunity to make a play, that’s what we need.

"Chris is allowing us to run some triggers on offense through him, he is very poised, but more importantly, he has been aggressive in giving us that presence at the rim in a variety of different areas—the rebounding presence, the shot-blocking, changing shots, and just being a factor in the paint.”

Boozer? That hasn’t gone so well for Chicago. He was very good in Game 3, scoring 21 points, but even then, Bosh was better, scoring 20 with 19 rebounds. For the series, Boozer has averaged just 12.3 points and 6.8 rebounds and has shot 38.0 percent from the field.

As Spoelstra said, the averages don’t tell the whole story for Bosh, but they tell enough of the tale when it comes to his matchup with Boozer: 14.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.3 blocks, 50.0 percent from the field.

Sound familiar? It should. Bosh did much the same thing to Boozer in 2011, when the Bulls won the opener against the Heat, then lost the next four games—that, too sounds familiar. In that series, Bosh was outstanding, averaging 23.6 points (on 60.0 percent shooting) to just 14.4 points (on 40.7 percent shooting) for Boozer. Throughout his career, the undersize Boozer (6-foot-9) has struggled against taller, longer opponents, and the 6-11 Bosh is both.

Bosh's contributions have become all the more important for the Heat with Dwyane Wade playing through knee problems. Wade had six points and was 3-for-10 from the field Monday. That left it to Bosh and James (27 points) to carry the Miami offense, and they were the only Heat scorers to reach double figures.

“It’s not so much with D(-Wade),” Bosh told reporters. “We’ve always been working on how to be aggressive collectively, and still bring that to the table, but still play together. I can’t just say I was being super-duper aggressive, I was just shooting open jumpers. LeBron, he is always going to play his same game. I thought D came out aggressive as well. … We’re always trying to find that balance of how to play together and be aggressive and still be effective.”

Assuming the Heat go on to finish the Bulls, the Heat will again need Bosh to be a key factor, especially if the frontcourt-heavy Indiana Pacers beat the New York Knicks in the East’s other series. Bosh would like to have a measure of revenge there; he missed the bulk of last year’s series with the Pacers because of a stomach injury.

For now, though, Bosh is asserting himself in a way that should give Miami fans some comfort. The Heat nearly wound up with Boozer as their big-guy score three years ago. They got Bosh instead, and are still reaping the benefits.